UK Status, Change and Projections of the Environment (UK-SCaPE)

由于空气和土壤质量、水和粮食安全以及生物多样性保护方面的压力越来越大，英国在21世纪面临着重大挑战。为了为这些问题提供有效的解决办法，需要进行范式转变，将当前的重点从孤立的地方问题转移到为人民、经济和环境提供多重好处的景观规模的综合交付。为了能够开发这样的综合系统，理解我们将指导我们的国家能力交付两个工作包：WP1：通过对土地、水、土壤、空气和生物多样性的关键指标的观察和分析，我们将寻求了解是什么控制着环境资产的状况和动态。在合作伙伴关系中，我们将对英国环境进行全面的全国范围评估。我们将进行长期的大规模调查，并利用合作伙伴的数据(通过社区门户网站提供数据)来产生所需的证据基础，以回答以下问题：土地：哪些土地覆盖类别在空间范围、条件或连通性方面发生变化？生物多样性：英国生物多样性、生态系统服务及其驱动因素的变化现状和模式是什么？土壤：整个英国土壤状况和功能的变化方向和程度是什么，多重压力如何相互作用，以创造观察到的时空模式？空气：是什么驱动污染物和温室气体的流动？水：水流和土壤湿度的环境决定因素是什么？总而言之，这些全国性的数据集提供了回答交叉问题的能力。这些数据对于WP2和我们的国家能力组合(LTS、多中心和官方发展援助活动)的模型参数化和发展也至关重要。通过英国地球观测框架、学会和主要利益攸关方等论坛进一步与用户社区接触，将使社区能够不断挑战我们共同监测的自然环境；为什么以及如何监测；WP2：关于水、生物多样性、生态系统、土壤等环境资产与其带来的好处(如清洁空气、野生动物和食物)之间联系的经验证据是支离破碎和不完整的。我们将开发证据链(连接来自WP1和其他地方的数据，以及在改进的模型中封装的最新过程理解)，以探索环境资产如何结合在一起影响人类的利益。我们重点关注四个优先事项：空气：我们如何通过提高对空气污染、植被和气候之间相互作用的理解来保护人类和生态系统的健康？水：未来的气候将如何影响水的可获得性和质量？生物多样性：我们如何解决冲突，以保护生物多样性和对可持续能源生产的承诺？土地和土壤：未来的土地管理将如何影响土壤和生物多样性，同时使高效和有弹性的生产成为可能？这些基础活动还支持两个解决已确定的知识差距的研究方案。RP1：SPEED：英国缺乏与正在进行的国际研究有关的环境驱动因素的协调预测。CEH将提供对气候变化、土地利用变化和一组特定污染物的空间清晰预测，这些污染物来自IPCC制定的共同社会经济路径。这将为研究界和其他用户提供一个评估环境变化影响的连贯框架。RP2：SOC-D：最近的研究倡议得出结论，生物和结构因素比化学因素对土壤有机碳(SOC)动态的影响比之前认为的更大。这一新的理解将在实验中探索，并在一个新的基于过程的SOC模型中捕获，该模型将是开放访问的。

The UK faces significant challenges in the 21st century due to mounting pressure on air and soil quality, water and food security, and the conservation of biodiversity. To provide effective solutions to these problems a paradigm shift is required that moves the current focus from isolated local issues towards a landscape scale, integrated delivery which provides multiple benefits for people, the economy and the environment. To enable the development of such integrated systems understanding we will direct our national capability to deliver two work packages:WP1: Through observation and analysis of key metrics across land, water, soil, air and biodiversity, we will seek to understand what controls the status and dynamics of environmental assets. In partnership we will deliver a fully integrated National Scale Assessment of the UK environment. We will undertake long term large scale surveys and draw on partner data (providing data through portals to the community) to produce the evidence base needed to answer the following questions:Land: Which land cover classes are changing in spatial extent, condition or connectivity?Biodiversity: What is the current status and pattern of change in UK biodiversity, ecosystem services and their drivers?Soil: What is the direction and magnitude of change in soil condition and function across the UK and how do multiple pressures interact to create the spatial and temporal patterns observed? Air: What drives the fluxes of pollutants and greenhouse gases?Water: What are the environmental determinants of water flows and soil moisture? Together, these national scale datasets provide the capacity to answer cross cutting questions. These data are also critical for model parameterisation and development in WP2 and across our national capability portfolio (LTS Multiple centre and ODA activities). Engaging further with the user community through fora such as the UK Earth Observation Framework, Learned Societies and key stakeholders will enable the community to continually challenge and prioritise what we collectively are monitoring in the natural environment; the why and how.WP2: The empirical evidence on links between environmental assets such as water, biodiversity, ecosystems, soil and the benefits they deliver such as clean air, wildlife and food, is fragmented and incomplete. We will develop evidence chains (which link data from WP1 and elsewhere, and the latest process understanding encapsulated in improved models) to explore how environmental assets combine to influence benefits to humans. We have focused on four priorities:Air: How can we protect human and ecosystem health by improving our understanding of interactions between air pollution, vegetation and climate?Water: How will future climate influence water availability and quality?Biodiversity: How can we resolve conflicts to protect biodiversity and commitments to sustainable energy generation?Land & soil: How will future land management affect soils and biodiversity, whilst enabling efficient and resilient production? These underpinning activities also support two research programmes addressing defined knowledge gaps. RP1: SPEED: The UK lacks co-ordinated projections of environmental drivers that are linked to ongoing international research. CEH will provide spatially explicit projections of climate change, land use change and a specified set of pollutants that are derived from the Shared Socio-economic Pathways developed under the IPCC. This will provide the research community and other users with a coherent framework for assessing environmental change impacts.RP2: SOC-D: Recent research initiatives have concluded that biological and structural factors, over chemical factors, influence the dynamics of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) more than previously thought. This new understanding will be explored experimentally and captured in a new process-based SOC model, which will be open access.